Perhaps it was those text books in school that taught me evolution, perhaps it was my science teacher who told me everything has a natural explanation, perhaps it was simply the culture I was raised in, perhaps it was Scooby Doo that led me to be a naturalist.
Yes, I was once a naturalist. I used to mock Christians and their inability to defend their belief in the Bible. No, I was not a philosopher, but I was most certainly influenced by the modernist view.
What troubles me about the arrogance of the modernist and even post-modernist view is the claim to being open-minded, while the Christian by definition cannot be. Much like the characters on the famous cartoon, they seem to be open-minded about allowing the "clues" to lead them to their conclusion. Christians, however, are biased and unintellectual as opposed to those great detectives.
Naturalists do allow for clues to help guide them in forming their conclusions. I seriously think no one disputes that. What I have been disputing with Limejelly (an atheist on forester's Blog) is that there are presuppositions that do govern and control the outcome just as much as the Christian has.
Naturalists do have presuppositions that guide their thinking. So all the while they give the arrogant appearance of being open-minded, they in fact preclude possible explanations of evidence by their own worldview. They refuse to see their own presuppositions as being under fire and run from the conversation as quickly as possible. Sometimes I wonder if they even realize they have any.
A La Carte (April 30)
10 hours ago
3 comments:
What, because we are not superstitious, we have a closed mind?
Are you suggesting not believing someone has epilepcy and is not possessed by demons is somehow narrow-minded?
I'll leave that kind of thinking to primitive people, thanks all the same.
Seeing genuinely sick people subjected to priests trying to cast out their "evil spirits" does set my blood to boil. Just a little.
But I guess I'm just blinkered. Right?
Who would disagree that being superstitious is wrongheaded and is a poor way of looking at the world. So I would not disagree with you there.
"Are you suggesting not believing someone has epilepcy and is not possessed by demons is somehow narrow-minded?"
This sounds great, but how many Christians do you know deny that epilepsy is a real physical problem? Do you see Christians lining up to make sure Terry Schiavo gets starvation instead of medical treatment? It is exactly the naturalistic modern and post-modern worldviews that allowed for Terry's death. (Ironic isn't it?)
Whther or not there are spiritual world factors that play a role in human diseases could easily land us in the "hows" of theology.
I happen to be an EMT. When I arrive at a home, I do not look for demons to cast out. I, like the writer of the Bible Luke, care about people's well being. But my care stems from a Christian worldview. Otherwise there is no explanation for "caring".
"Seeing genuinely sick people subjected to priests trying to cast out their "evil spirits" does set my blood to boil. Just a little."
Why? What is the basis of blood boiling? Is there a real moral problem that you are encountering?
I have a friend who would have died if his parents followed the Watch Tower Society's dogmatic teaching on blood transfusions. I would defend his transfusion to this day.
Still, none of your points have anything to do with the discussion at hand. The arrogance of the "modern man" to think there have never been skeptics in the past.
The truth is, the miracles of the Bible were not accepted readily by people, including the immediate followers of Jesus Himself.
Anyone ever heard of Doubting Thomas?
BTW:
I simply think Al Gore (being the most brilliant "modern" man to be alive today) is as superstitious as any religious wacko I have ever met.
Global Warming, while claiming to be so scientific, is an anti-captialist movement in order to scare people to fear the end of the world apocolypse left wing style. So much for modern man....
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